Just Some Basic New Player Tips I post on ESOReddit

SpAEkus · December 2015

First, do some reading. Decide what type of character you ENJOY playing. For ESOTU that means Alliance, Race, Class, Combat Role. Read as much as needed to decide so you can then concentrate on ENJOYING playing that character.

Here's a lot of the basics:

ESOReddit New Players guide

ESO Forums Basic Guide

Videos Tamriel A to Z by Deltia's Gaming

Veteran Wisdom for New Players by Tamriel Foundry

ESOAcademy Website

And here's some detailed build sites for whatever character you want to try. Remember you have 8 character slots, if what you start you don't like, start another.

http://deltiasgaming.com/

http://esoacademy.com/

http://alpha-rahl.com/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ESObuilds

http://tamrielfoundry.com/forum/classes/

http://tamrielfoundry.com/forum/general/cyrodiil/

After you pick what you want to play. Here's some first steps to set you on your way.

Join as many guilds as you can to have people to help you and ask questions and also to be able to travel to guild members until you find all the zone wayshrines
If you can, get some gear/weapons with training trait on it to quickly level that gear/weapon type. Many Guilds will give new members free gear/weapons.
Go get all the safe/mostly safe Skyshards for your alliance zones. You can get them naked they are that safe. Just avoid enemies along the way. DC has 45 for 15 skill points, AD 39/13, EP 50/16. SAFE Walk-Swim-Sneak Skyshard Maps
Use all those free skill points to open up early skills/passives that will help you complete the quests along the way.
If you do the zone quests and clear the zone dolmens and dungeons/delves you will actually start over leveling each zone by a bit.
Don't skip any enemies on the way to objectives, all their XP adds up.

Then if/when you want to look into crafting, here's the basics:

BLACKSMITH - CLOTHIER - WOODWORKER

Decon everything you loot from kills.
Decon every weapon/armor that you can steal from racks (less craft IP but free).
All initial points in material level passive
Extra points in Metal Extraction/Unraveling/Wood Extraction for better Decon returns
IP Return Penalties for Level 1-49 Characters unless Character or Craft Skill Level (Whichever is higher) is within certain levels of the Item Material Level. See the MAX IP link below. CP10-50 characters may also have penalties decon CP150-160 items, further testing needed.
Decon traded crafted items as well (Same IP return from another player or an Alt-Character).
To craft a normal item you need the Material Passive and the proper number of refined materials per Item(Ingots/Cloth+Leathers+Hides/Woods) and a Racial or Motif Stone or Crown Store Mimic Stone.
To craft a SET item you need the Material Passive and the proper number of refined materials per Item(Ingots/Cloth+Leathers+Hides/Woods) and a Racial or Motif Stone or Crown Store Mimic Stone.. PLUS you need to research the proper number of traits per item for that specific SET.
Racial Styles and Motifs have minimum Metalworking/Tailoring/Woodworking passive requirements.
* All Basic Alliance Races Plus Imperial - 1 Point
* Primal - 6 or more points
* Barbaric - 7 or more points
* Ancient Elves – 8 or more points
* Daedric – 9 points
* Dwemer - 9 Points
* Akaviri - 9 Points
* Mercenary - 9 Points
* Xivkyn - 9 Points
* Covenant - 10 points
* Dominion - 10 Points
* Pact - 10 Points
* All Orsinium, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood DLC - 1 Point
To upgrade an item you need the proper number of upgrade materials (Temper/Tannin/Resin) per item. Must apply max number to get 100% chance and avoid loss of the item
30 Champion Points in the Tower Constellation will add 20% Inspiration gain.

ALCHEMY

Start Running the first zone of rivers that gives Clear Water and collect all the waters you come across. Take Water Skins as well.
Then go to Coldharbor and run the Hollow City to collect Reagents (the flowers are there without opening any of the city).
Eat a new Reagent to learn its first trait or check out the lists online.
Make potions with ANY 2 herbs that work
Leveling is only based on Solvent (water) level not Reagents.
Put first skill points in water level and nothing else.
Gather and craft with higher water level as soon as you can with the same Reagents that work.
To level Alchemy Skill to L50 - Make 21/19 Clear Water, 41/38 Pristine Water, 48/44 Cleansed Water, 60/55 Filtered Water, 87/79 Purified Water (Non+Plus/+Plus Subscribed).
30 Champion Points in the Tower Constellation will add 20% Inspiration gain.

PROVISIONING

For Provisioning you only need 4 recipes, one each of L15-L25-L35-L45 (food/bev level made).
Loot from Containers, Steal or buy one of each. Recipes can be bought from Chefs and Brewers or Guild Stores/Traders.
Get ingredients out of city barrels/sacks/containers and Coldharbor (no theft). In cities find warehouses with closed doors and no inside guards and go wild. Some ships as well. Ingredients can also be bought from Grocers and Guild Stores and Traders.
Only apply points to Recipe Improvement (only need 3) to level 1-50. Apply rest of points after L50.
Only make green (2 ingredient foods/bevs) no extra IP for blue or purple.
The Cooking Fire will display which recipes you know and if you have the proper ingredients and how much you can make.
To level Provisioning Skill to L50 - Make 96/78/92/128 (87/70/84/115 if +PLUS subscribed) of each recipe level above.

ENCHANTING

Decon all loot Glyphs
Harvest Runes from Rune Stones (nodes) in all zones.
As of DB DLC all rune stones contain one Essence and one Aspect rune and 1/3 chance of a Potency Rune.
As of DB DLC 1/2 time the Potency will be scaled to Character Level and 1/2 the time Potency Improvement Passive Level.
Craft Glyphs to use. Decon crafted glyphs from other players or from an Alternate-Character.
Do not Decon Glyphs Crafted on the same Character that crafted them. It wastes materials and gives only 10% of full IP.

Bottom line there are enough shard points to get a massive head start on crafting and combat leveling. WITH that head start you can then just level/explore and have FUN while adding to your skill points and it will fly by quicker if you are enjoying the journey. Level 1-50 for combat is NOT hard, you only need enough skills to kill what is in front of your objectives. BUT you need to concentrate on early skill level of the MAJOR skill trees that you plan on end-game using.

Here's some Crafting Details sites:

http://tamrieljournal.com/crafting-and-professions/

http://teso.mmorpg-life.com/crafting-guide/

And if you want the raw numbers here they are

Here's a Google Doc for tracking all your efforts. NOTE: will update for V15/V16

Finally if on PC you can get some basic addons that can make the game easier. Use as much as you want *SPOILERS*

Destinations - All kinds of locations marked on map

Skyshards - All those free skill points

Luminary Teleporter - Fast Travel to any Guild Member from game map open

Harvest Map - start logging all collected nodes on map

Azurah - only to move all the GUI around as desired

Spent Skill Points - display directly on character tab

Awesome Guild Store - 10x better than ESO basic

Advanced Filters - goes with AGS above

Wykyyd Quest Tracker - more info or less but better than ESO basic

Lootdrop - never guess + other experience data immediately

Guild Chat - never guess alliance or char level of Guild members in chat

AI Research Grid - all characters in one popup screen

Research Assistant - Never guess if you need to keep something for later

Circonians Buff Tracker - Names next to the icon symbol for each